Category Archives: pop

I support pop, I do. I want to bite Wrongkong’s heads off and see how they’re wired, because it’s only once in a while that “indie” bands manage to present us with neither the tortured artist poop or attempts at new, original, never-been-done-before “soundscapes”. And they’re always from Sweden or something. Sometimes it’s a case of fiat lux, fiat pop. I’m pretty sure I just made that up.

So here’s the “five-headed beast” named Wrongkong, with a perfectly good pop beat. They do not appear to have sold their inner underwear in the Faustian spirit, and their latest single is for a video (or vice-versa), My Dearest Enemy, which is a little bird that flew off their album, So Electric.

I’m giving up trying to describe or define music- that is entirely beside the point. But here’s the thing.

I could just yell, Translucent geometry! and leave it at that.

Uh, no. Panda Bear‘s music comes from someone with vision, and I can feel his efforts to put that vision forth, when I listen to it. There’s a sense of communing with something great when you listen to songs like Alsatian Darn or Slow Motion. It doesn’t take you by surprise, in fact it’s expected.

I know a lot of people feel enthusiasm for this LP coming from the same source, the same origin – it takes music to remind us we’re not really separate, even more so when lyrics talk of doubts, and slipping up, and ‘if’s’ and ‘would’s’. Being alone is sometimes the most community-oriented thing you can do.

No reinventing of the wheel here. This bit of summery, jangly pop might be too laden with cuteness to work for most, but it’s light-hearted and ready to warm you up like a ray of sunshine spearing through a cloudy day.